A day in the life of...

7am - time to get out of bed - despite having been awake for hours due to one or more of the following: dogs barking constantly, neighbours playing music very loudly, public announcements and/or music playing over loudspeakers, prayers and/or music from the temple nearby.
Cold shower (how I miss having hot water on tap! such a luxury!) then either breakfast at home (cereal with long-life milk) or off to town on the back of Dan's motorbike. If we have breakfast in town we have either beef noodle soup (pho), sticky rice with chicken or fried eggs on a baguette.
8 - 8.30am - work. At the moment we are organising a national workshop on co-management (http://czm-soctrang.org.vn/EN/CW/home.aspx). Also working on some environmental awareness raising ideas, anyone fancy writing a kids song about mangroves for me?
11am - midday, Mon, Tues and Thurs - Vietnamese language lesson.
12 midday - lunch. Usually beef and pork noodle soup (bun bo) or vegetarian noodle salad.
About 1:00 - coffee or sprite at Mrs Thao's cafe. Mrs Thao has taken quite a shine to us and sometimes brings us out cut fruit, biscuits or yoghurt. She also plays the cds that we made for her with Western music. Quite bizarre to be sitting in a cafe in the middle of Soc Trang listening to Powderfinger and Crowded House.
1:30/2:00 - back to work. Sit in the freezing office (Vietnamese seem to love air-con and usually have it set on about 18 degrees) and try to avoid using the office toilet (smelly and gross - I will never complain about work toilets in a Western workplace again!).
4:30 - 5:00 - Home time. 8mins on the back of Dan's motorbike back home or 15mins riding my bike.
5:00 - 7:00 - Spare time with nothing to do, usually end up watching a dvd. Have become a fan of NZ tv series Outrageous Fortune, also re-watching Mighty Boosh and Flight of the Conchords series.
7:00 - Dinner somewhere in town. (Haven't cooked at home yet.) Cafe 36 if there is a work dinner on (or if someone decides they want to drink beer), the pizza and burger place if we are craving Western food (though it has been closed the past few days - hopefully it is not closed for good!) or one of the other restaurants in town, usually we end up getting prawns, squid, fried morning glory with garlic and/or green mango salad.
9:00 - 10:00 - Bed and sleep. As long as that *^%* dog isn't barking again!!!